Steve Stern (The Book of Mischief, The Frozen Rabbi) dazzles again with his inventive novel The Pinch: A Novel, a History. He loves mischievously to play with "story," and this concoction is a hilarious romp set in an actual, once-thriving Jewish community in Memphis, Tenn. In the late 1960s, Lenny Sklarew, its last resident, peddles drugs and works at the Book Asylum while avoiding the draft. One day he discovers a big, musty, privately printed book from 1952 entitled The Pinch: A History. Flipping through it, he realizes, "I'm a character!" and slams it shut.
The chapters alternate between Lenny in the 1960s and the 1910s Pinch of Jewish immigrant Muni Pinsker, author of the book Larry finds. Muni works in his uncle Pinchas Pin's store and becomes smitten with Jenny Bashrig, a barefooted, high-wire walker who "gamboled above the alley between Rosen's Delicatessen and Pin's Merchandise."
Deep into reading Muni's history, Larry "approached the book with an ostrich-egg lump in my throat, since, in reading The Pinch, I was conscious of also approaching a rendezvous with myself." He's also falling in love with Rachel Ostrofsky, who fancies herself a folklorist, and together they begin to unravel the book's mysteries.
Stern draws upon the rich, Talmudic world of demons, spirits, ghosts and magic. An impressive literary conjurer, Stern twists and turns his story every which way. It dazzles as it befuddles, keeping readers off-balance in this multilayered, Alice in Wonderland history of families and the Pinch. The book's challenges are many, but its end is richly rewarding. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher